Guaranteed Income and Biopolitics

* Article: Revenu Garanti et Biopolitique. Par Bernard Aspe et Muriel Combes. Multitudes Online, 29/10/04

URL = https://www.multitudes.net/revenu-garanti-et-biopolitiique/

Summary

From the reading notes of Michel Bauwens, 2005:

The essay starts by retracing the history of the universal wage demand in Italy in 1969-70, when it was supported by the Autonomous movement.

Today, it encounters two objections. One from the right, and from the old left, nl. that it would destroy the work ethic, a charge easily dismissed say the authors.

The second, coming from the new activists, who say that such a purely material demand does not address the issue of meaning in work. The 'refusal to work' on which the autonomous movement was based, seems no longer at work. The new generations seem to care about the activities they engage in.

This may be less because the new immaterial capitalism alienates the subject, than because it finds an already existing subjectification, and decided to exploit it.

   - => “Ce n’est pas le sujet qui adhère au travail, c’est le travail qui adhère au sujet”.

When the total self is mobilized, even for less noble tasks, sabotage is no longer an option, because it would destroy's one own dignity.

Biopower creates a bio-political subjectivation, a social struggle centering around a meaningful life itself., and which can only be articulated around a common project.